My Own Worst Enemy
Growing up God had to give me some powerful lessons in not being a people pleaser. At the time, each lesson felt more like painful stripping away than empowering character moments. God has brought me a long way since then. Now I know my deepest pains are what give birth to beautiful growth and the capability to hold more love than I ever had before.
Over the years I embraced learning how to be unchained from the opinions of others but up until now I had not realized there was still a subtle enemy lurking within the walls of my heart and mind. The enemy was so covert I didn't even recognize her when I would see her in the mirror.
The enemy was me.
Although I had learned to silence the rejecting and critical voices of others I had let mine have free reign to speak. Why? Because I thought my inner critic still had rights to speak whatever it wanted into my life. Sure, I listened to Jesus too but I let BOTH voices have thrones in my mind. Often what would happen is Jesus would speak a victorious truth over me only to have my condemning inner critic chime in with something like "Now Erin, God couldn't possibly be speaking that to YOU. That's just wishful thinking and you trying to make yourself feel better but in reality God could never really do anything with your life."
It was a constant battle of feeling like I would gain victory just to be slapped back down again until a couple months ago, when my mom was reading God's testimony over her.
Through the things he had revealed to her, God revealed something to me. She kept saying how our testimonies should not be all the garbage God brought us out of but of the NEW CREATURE and amazing purposes He has made for us to triumph in going forward as that new creature. It was at that moment the final puzzle piece I was missing all those years fell into place.
Jesus is the ONLY one who should have reign to speak over my life for, through salvation, I had been bought with a price.
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Even Jesus submitted himself to listening to God's voice over his own.
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
John 12:48-49
And when I realized even Jesus himself only spoke what the Father said it changed even how I read the Gospels.
I can't tell you how freeing it was to finally realize that nobody's opinions, not even my own, get to define me. God gets the final say so and what he speaks over his beloved children would make even the most inspiration speech or love letter seem bland. His desires are so full of love and blessing I can't even fathom the depths of them but even still He loves me with an everlasting love.
The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
Jeremiah 31:3
Today, I no longer am receiving what Jesus speaks over me through the filter of my own opinions or anyone else's'. It is coming straight from his heart to my heart.
Next Sunday I will share God's testimony over my life and God's testimony over my mom's. It is our prayer that when you read them you too will see how you have been set free. It is time to stop the self sabotage instigated by your own worst enemy called ME. Now is the time to start embracing God's testimony over you because that is who you truly are in Christ.
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